After TTP infighting

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What, after all, is the use of these talks?

The infighting among TTP groups has raised a number of disturbing questions. It was maintained that the TTP is a monolith united on the basis of ideology and following a strict discipline with the Shura having the last word in disputes which everyone was supposed to accept. When reports about bloody skirmishes between the TTP’s Sheryar and Said Sajna groups started appearing, these were explained away by the TTP spokesman as incidents caused by minor bitterness which would be immediately resolved following intervention by the TTP central Shura. Hadn’t Shahidullah Shahid said that all segments of the TTP abide by the decision taken by the central Shura? When the infighting broke out he had accused the media of exaggerating the incidents. As fighting spilled over from South Waziristan into Shawal in North Waziristan and Gomal area of Tank, the TTP got panicky and appealed to the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network to mediate. When the mediation failed to stop the infighting the TTP started accusing the Pakistani agencies of causing rifts in the organisation, which claims to enforce Sharia and create a world Islamic state through use of force rather than persuasion.

The Taliban rely on violence for settling differences. They have vowed to enforce a system of their liking in Pakistan through bullet rather than ballet. Similarly differences among the Taliban are not settled through argument, but resort to the use of weapons. The ongoing fighting between Sajna and Sheryar groups is interestingly not over how to enforce Sharia but on leadership, or in other words on power and pelf. These differences started when a successor to Hakimullah Mehsud was to be appointed. Last month a key commander and Shura member of the TTP Asmatullah Shaheen Bhittani had been killed in a targeted attack in North Waziristan by unknown assailants. Bhittani had opposed Sajna and supported Mullah Fazlullah to replace Hakimullah Mehsud as TTP chief. The infighting is the result of personal rivalry over leadership of the South Waziristan chapter. This should make the apologists of the TTP reconsider the importance of ideology in the TTP. Here are two prominent leaders of the Pakistani Taliban attacking mercilessly their fellow militants with heavy weapons in pursuit of power.

Ch Nisar had led people to believe that the TTP represented all militants and a deal with it would ensure that there would be no terrorist attacks in Pakistan. Now we find that instead of representing the entire spectrum of the militants, the TTP is itself is badly divided. The Sajna group and the Seheryar group are violently attacking one another for personal gains. Similarly the group of Taliban led by Khorasani has cared little for talks the central leadership was holding with the government. If there are as many groups in the TTP as there are commanders then what is the value of agreements reached with Mullah Fazlullah’s TTP?

1 COMMENT

  1. TTP is a terrorist organization. How can you make peace with terrorists. The only answer for TTP is all out war. They are like cancer. That was wrong on the government part trying to make peace. TTP want ‘ s blood of the pakistani people. TTP does not want ballet they want bullets.

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